Wednesday, 19 July 2017

Iceland 2017 - Day 3

Overnight the weather changed, the clouds had come in and brought the rain with them. This is apparently proper Icelandic weather but we were optimistic for clearer skies as the day wore on.

After a hearty breakfast and packing our bags we were off to our first stop of the day, the Keird Volcano. Kerid was once a cone volcano that erupted and emptied its magma reserve causing the roof of the chamber to subside. We were able to walk around the rim of the volcano as well as walk around the lake water inside the volcano's chamber.

Next on our adventure was Geysir, the first named geyser in the world, which is a spouting hot spring. It rarely erupts nowadays but its neighbour 'Strokkur' erupts every 10 - 15 minutes to a height of 30M. This stop is the first in the trio of natural wonders of the Golden Circle all of which we will visit today.

After a break undercover for our lunch went to the second of the natural wonders of Iceland's Golden Circle, Gullfoss Waterfalls. These double falls drop over 30M before the plunge into a gorge which is almost a mile long. Watching the power and beauty of the falls you can see why they are one of Iceland's most photographed and visited sites.

We stopped of at Efstidalur Dairy Farm to sample some "homemade" Icelandic Ice Cream and then went on to Thingvellir. This is the third stop on the Golden Circle and the home of Iceland's first Parliament established in 930AD. The site straddles the mid-Atlantic Ridge, it's rift valley forming where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates pull apart at a rate of up to 3cm per year. We literally stood in two continents!

After checking in to our nights accommodation in Reykjavik we once again met up with Mr Patchell. He and his family had kindly invited our group to dinner at their house. After a long day exploring we were all looking forward to a good meal.

Not wanting us to miss out on new experiences Mr Patchell had purchased us bus tickets to travel to his house.

We were warmly greeted by his wife and sons and feasted on Burgers, Icelandic Sausages and Chips followed by a generous helping of Ice Cream.

Our evening was finished off nicely when Mr Patchell sons invited us to join them for their story time. Mr Patchell's eldest son read us a story in Icelandic, which we were very impressed by, and in turn our pupils read his sons a story.

We would all like to thank Mr Patchell, his wife and sons, for their generous hospitality. We all had a lovely time.

After we returned it was time to turn in for the night as we have an early start tomorrow.